Thoughts on Money

This is the kind of work we do as financial advisors. We help clients lean into the tension between money and meaning. It’s not about quick answers! It’s about living with the questions long enough to align their money with what truly matters.

Small Planet Institute co-founder Anna Lappé once said:

“Every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want.”

Neither he nor the others feel that the hunched shoulders and housing insecurity of their youth were good for their art. The “La Bohème” portrait of impoverished painters and poets was after all a description, not a prescription. “And at least they could afford the garret,” Jacobs-Jenkins says. “In New York, forget it.”

But consumption smoothing pays homage to an existential reality: Life itself is the ultimate scarce asset. The future is unknowable, and religiously maintaining a double-digit savings rate through the worst squalls of life is not of the utmost importance.

I have great control of my money when I am earning it. I have zero control of my money when I am not.

Being "good with money" means you know how to USE it. Saving money is one use, but it's not the exclusive way to put your money to work for you .

That was our first lesson. To earn money, we did some house chores that we called “job-jobs”.

You could only do the paying “job-jobs” after your regular household chores.

She continued to build on this by talking to us about our futures and encouraging us to save to meet different goals instead of spending it all.